High Point Furniture Market CEO Tom Conley— who strongly spoke out over the potential effect HB2 would have on the market— will not speak at a rally opposing the bill in Greensboro on Sunday:
“Our statement stands as written,” Conley said today, adding that his staff continues to hear from people who won’t be attending as a result of HB2. Economic losses could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said.
The last thing the market wants is to trigger boycotts or contribute to anyone’s decision to stay away. At the same time, leaders felt an obligation to let the politicians and public know what kind of feedback it was getting.
The statement may not have been well-received in Raleigh. There have been rumors that, in response, the state could cut some or all of the funding, about $2 million a year, it provides to support transportation and marketing services for the twice-annual furniture show.
“We’ve heard those rumors, too,” Conley said, adding: “We have not heard that from the mouth of any legislator.”
Meanwhile, the Gboro theater community is none too happy over Broadway composer Steven Schwartz’s (“Godspell,” “Wicked”) announcement that he will no longer allow his plays to be produced in North Carolina:
Mitchel Sommers, the executive director of Community Theatre of Greensboro, called it “a theatrical disaster.”
“CTG’s bread and butter is its shows, which all must get royalty permission from their owners in order to be produced,” Sommers said via email. “If Stephen Schwartz’s ban on NC theaters producing his work is mirrored by his other Broadway colleagues, which is inevitable, what are we going to put on?”
Not to mention that the Gboro council and coliseum director Matt Brown were pointing to the ability to draw Broadway shows as a selling point for the downtown performing arts center.
Like the NBA All-Star game and Charlotte, a Broadway boycott would only hurt supporters of LGBT causes. The guys in Raleigh aren’t backing down in an election year—right now the best way for opponents to fight HB2 is show up at the polls come November. In the meantime the best way to support opponents of HB2 is to, well, continue to support them.
Gboro’s performing arts center does raise an interesting issue, however— being a city-owned building, it will subject to the bathroom law. On the other hand, if it were privately-owned building….